“Are you sure?” Jeremy’s question to the intel agent on the other end of the call said something to cause him to whip around and rest his attention on Jason.
“What?” His brother straightened, his eagerness to jump into the middle of the inevitable action obvious. Of course there’d be action. Why else would the intel agent call on a Friday night? Action equated to excitement, at least according to these two.
Not to Rand. He’d seen enough action to last two lifetimes. He’d lost good men. Fathers. Brothers. Sons. They’d all made the same mistake of thinking action equated to excitement, too. He relaxed in the chair and nursed his coffee, his attention torn between following Jeremy’s conversation and listening for any sign that Bree did the same from her room. After what he’d laced her drink with, she shouldn’t be doing anything but sleeping soundly.
“Send me everything,” Jeremy barked.
Rand didn’t need any level of intel to predict what was on the horizon. He’d read the signs and put it all together within hours of being called in on this assignment. Was it his fault the Bowmans couldn’t put it all together? The subject needed the extra push. Her life literally depended on it.
It didn’t take Bree more than a simple observation planted at the opportune time to make the connection. As the sideline twin demanded answers from his intel agent, the frontline twin kept his attention on their guest. Rand didn’t miss the way he studied him, already knowing what he saw.
“Ask if you’re going to,” he growled and regarded Jason. “Even though you already know the answer.”
“Why’d you mention the connection to her?”
“Someone should.”
“Why not mention it to us first?”
“I gave you enough time to put it together on your own.”
He narrowed that blue glare. Nice try. No one had that lethal glare like TREX’s special director, Dan Weber. If Weber didn’t have what it took to stare down this ex-SEAL, Bowman didn’t stand a chance in the deepest recesses of hell to succeed.
“Thanks, Bailey. I’ll watch for it.” He frowned and faced Rand as he spoke into the phone. “How’d you know that? Just now? I didn’t make the connection. Rand did.” He ended the call and joined them at the table, his gaze unyielding. “Tell me how you did it.”
“I’m going to need more to go on.” Rand stopped himself before finishing his statement with the insult he had resting on the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t Jeremy’s fault he didn’t know how to interrogate someone. He spent all his time chained to a desk delivering intel instead of using it to track the tango.
“I don’t think you do,” Jason added. Now this Bowman had more to him than meets the eye. He played the dimwit, the all-brawn-no-brain twin. Rand didn’t believe it, not for a second. Jason Bowman may not have an IQ higher than Einstein like his brother. That didn’t make him any less smart. Where Jeremy had book smarts, Jason had street sense. Instinct outweighed intellect when it came to split-second decisions.
“How’d you put it together?” Jeremy asked. “I knew there had to be an odd sock.”
“A what?” What the hell did a sock have to do with anything?
“How’d you know to start at the end?”
“What he’s trying to say,” Jason jumped in when Rand twisted his expression, not understanding a goddamn word. That didn’t even sound like English. “What made you think the missing money was used to fund the hitter? Where’d you make the connection?”
“It’s my job to make the connection.” He bounced his gaze between them. When neither of them caught on, he sighed. They just didn’t grow them at Gahanna like they used to. “I work logistics in TREX’s search and rescue unit. It’s my job to find whatever the boss needs to succeed. Sometimes that’s assets. Other times that’s predicting a subject’s next steps. You have been so preoccupied with finding the money.” He motioned at Jeremy. “Or finding the hitter.” He motioned at Jason. “You both failed to track the third, and obvious, factor.”
When they blinked at him, waiting, he conceded by grounding out his favorite curse. He’d definitely have a little chat with the director over the caliber of agents TREX put out in the field. “The subject herself.”
“That still doesn’t answer his question.” Jason thrust out his chin. If this was his idea of establishing dominance, he had a long way to go. A long way to go.
“Actually,” Jeremy said and lifted his finger. “It does. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to think of Bree as the object to track.”
“Jer?”
“That’s it. That’s the odd sock!” He jumped up, a fire in his movement. Grabbing a laptop, he then returned to the table, a grin plastered to his face for the first time in a hell of a long time. “We’ve been looking at this all wrong. I’ve been so focused on following the trail of money I never stopped long enough to look at Bree as the odd sock.”
“Now, you’ve lost me,” Jason grunted and rose to grab a beer out of the fridge. He offered one to Rand, who declined. He’d seen far too many get lost looking for answers at the bottom of a bottle. “Bree’s the odd sock?”
Why the hell were these two yammering on about a damn sock?
“It’s all the things that are different.” He opened the laptop and furiously typed at the keys. “Why was she walking the day the taxi tried to run her down? Why was she driving the day her card didn’t work? Someone is leading her around like a puppet. She’s like the people in that one movie.”
“Now You See Me,” Jason explained when Rand shot him a look. It was more than a little unnerving the way they seemed to pick up on each other’s thoughts. “It’s about these four illusionists that—”
“I don’t care,” Rand cut in and returned his attention to Jeremy. He was on to something more than his initial thoughts. “Go on.”
“She takes a car to and from work. Why not those days? What was different?” His fingers flew over the keyboard. He paused and pointed at the screen. “Here’s something. Surveillance vid from nearby cameras show her walking to the street corner to get a coffee the morning the taxi nearly made contact. You can’t make out the driver, but you can the plate.” He nodded at Jason. “It’s the same taxi that was stolen the night before.”
“Chances are,” Rand said as he sipped his coffee. “The driver of that taxi is the same guy now in the morgue after Monday night’s run in.” He emphasized Monday night in the hope one of them picked up on it. Don’t make me do all the work, guys.
“Another thing that’s different.” Jeremy adjusted his glasses. “How’d the hitter know she was here?”
“I wasn’t followed.”
“Which means the hitter already knew she’d be here.”
“Why was our guy partial to cars?” Jason asked. “First the taxi. Then the sedan. Vehicles are inefficient and unpredictable. Why not use a gun? If the money really was used to hire the hitter, why not hire a professional? Pros don’t use cars for hits.”
“There’s got to be more than one hitter.” Jeremy stood and refilled his and Rand’s cups. “For that much cash, whoever took it could afford to hire more than one. It could be a team.”
“That explains how they knew she was here. I spotted you when I dropped her off at her building. She probably had eyes on her then. When they saw her talking to you, and then the kiss you no doubt gave her when you walked her to the door… It doesn’t take someone with TREX’s contacts to find her.” Rand let that sink in. Jeremy’s ears grew red. Good. He needed to know his little PDA led the hitter from her front door to his.
“I did this,” he muttered as the expression fell from his face along with his color. Collapsing onto a chair, he hung his head and labored his breathing. “She’s in danger because of me.”
“She’s alive because of you,” Jason corrected. “Don’t blame yourself for this, too.”
“Too?” Rand asked. He wanted Jeremy to at least feel a little guilt over this. He needed to know the consequences of his actions.
; “He blames himself for, well, just about anything bad that’s ever happened to anyone he’s ever known. Dude, it’s seriously messed up.”
And unhealthy. He’d seen this too many times, as well. Although he wasn’t much of a pep talker, if a few words of tough love snapped Jeremy out of the spiral, so be it. As the senior agent, it was his duty to keep an eye on the other two. Right now, they were his team. His brothers. No SEAL, ex or otherwise, turned his back on his brother. “Jason, do a perimeter sweep.”
“We already have…” He trailed off when Rand nailed him with a glare. “Right. Perimeter sweep. On it.”
“And Jason?” He waited until the other man turned. “Don’t call me dude.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rand adjusted his chair to face Jeremy and lowered his head to be equal to his. He’d read the file and knew there had to be more to the story. Luckily, he knew who to ask. Being tight with the special director’s right hand had its perks. Allen filled in the gaps not in the file—and there were a hell of a lot of gaps.
Did Jeremy know the whole story? Rand had his doubts. If the sideline agent knew what TREX didn’t add to the file, would he still blame himself?
Time to find out.
“I read your file. I know what happened.”
Jeremy’s head sank lower. He folded his hands and rested his thumbs on his forehead. Jesus. This guy looked ready to implode.
“The question is, do you?”
He stilled and lifted his gaze. His eyes were bloodshot, no doubt from the stress and weight of the world he wore like a second skin. “I was there.”
“But do you know why?”
Straightening, he took his time scanning the room before regarding Rand. “Of course I do. Jason had established himself with the tangos. When the opportunity came to take them down and he couldn’t be there, TREX sent me instead.” He chuckled acidly. “Guess we’re not as alike as everyone had hoped.”
“Guess not.”
His expression hardened as he glared. “Are you trying to make it worse?”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Jesus, Rand. Is that how it works with you? Make a person feel like he’s at the bottom of the shit barrel so when he has a bad day, he feels better about himself? Is this a British thing? A SEAL thing? What?”
“It’s an observation thing,” he fired back, pissed everyone always assumed it had something to do with his damn accent. He’d all but lost it having been in this country for most of his adult life. He’d earned his citizenship and had busted his ass protecting his US of A. Talking with the hint of an accent didn’t make him any less American.
“What more do you want? I screwed up.”
“Did you?”
“I’m not a field agent. I should have never been there.” He thrust his hand through his hair in clear frustration. “It’s my fault we lost the guy.”
“We didn’t lose the guy,” Rand corrected, irritated Jeremy couldn’t see the bigger picture. True, he was no field agent. But he was still an agent. He should be able to detach himself from his assignment. “We found the cowardly bastard, his cowardly buddies, and all their little cowardly contacts trying to skip town and, ultimately, the country. Your role on that find led us to them.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. My role on that find nearly got me killed.”
“Open your eyes, mate!” Rand slammed his fist to the table. Jason’s empty bottle toppled over and would have rolled to the floor if Jeremy hadn’t caught it. Coffee sloshed out of the cups, splashing all over the table and dripping off the side. “Jesus Christ, Bowman. How is it you can have a genius IQ and no fucking clue?”
He saw it coming. The flash in Bowman’s eyes right before he curled his fingers into a fist. The color as it drained from his face. The upswing. The baring of his teeth as he took a swing. Rand could have caught the barreling fist.
But he didn’t. The sting when the punch connected with his jaw caught him off-guard despite the expectation. He shook it off and even chuckled. The brainiac definitely had a solid right hook.
“Sure, you’ll fight me for stating the obvious, yet let your own blood keep feeding you bullshit you call the truth. Wake up, Jer. How can you blame yourself for something you were meant to do? You were there because TREX made a last-minute switch. They pulled Jason and put you in. Know why? He was standing in as you, not the other way around.” Rand paused and waited for the glimmer of hope. Then realization. Then shock. Then, finally, the truth.
Jeremy collapsed back in the chair as his gaze slipped to the floor. He swallowed several times as he shook his head over and over. Mouthing the word no wouldn’t alter history or change the fact.
“TREX needed brains on that find, yet didn’t want to risk one of their intel agents screwing up a field assignment. It was the best of both worlds. Send in a frontline agent to set up the sting. Once the tangos took the bait—which they did—send in the sideline agent to seal the deal.”
“I don’t,” he mumbled and swallowed again. His color still hadn’t returned. “I don’t seal the deal. Never have.”
“I call bullshit. That’s just a line your brother uses to keep you in line so he has a chance at the women you attract. Don’t think I don’t know about everything you share with your twin.” He tossed a glance at the door separating a sleeping Bree from them. “Not her. Not anymore. She deserves 100%. Give her that respect or walk away while you both still have your hearts intact. Circling back on why I really wanted you away from Jason. Are you hearing what I’m saying about that op?”
“Are you… You’re saying…” He blinked rapidly as he removed his glasses and set them on the table. “I was the agent they wanted all along?”
“How do you think your brother found you so fast? He knew where you’d be. Sure, he was back on the playing field when it all went down, but he knew. Deep down, he knew.”
“He knew and let me go in anyway.” He looked ready to cry. No, not cry. His expression hardened to stone. His icy glare narrowed. He bared his teeth and clenched his hands into fists.
He looked ready to kill.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“I think it’s more than that,” Jason pointed out after resting his back against the building entrance. He’d been fighting this gnawing in his gut since Rand invited himself upstairs for a debriefing. The impromptu meeting didn’t bother him nearly as much as the senior agent kicking him out to talk to Jeremy without him there to put things into perspective.
“You’re just upset Rand likes Jeremy better,” Bailey teased. “Don’t read so much into it. He wanted to have a little chat with your brother. What’s the harm in that?”
“What’s the harm?” He switched ears and held up the phone with his shoulder to free his hands to tighten the laces of his boots. He had to race out of there so fast, he didn’t get a chance to so much as tie them before getting kicked out of his own apartment. “Jer is working through a lot right now. He doesn’t need the stress.”
“Why do you treat him like a frail child? You’re not his mom. You’re his brother. He’s a grown man. Let him deal with this. Don’t you think you’ve protected him from the truth long enough?”
He slumped lower and scanned the street. The city hadn’t fixed the broken powerpole yet, although they’d removed the old one. The streetlights gave just enough light to leave way too many shadows to hide in. The night hadn’t cooled much. He grabbed the phone before rolling his shoulders. If he wanted to live where it stayed hot all the time, he’d move to Arizona.
“I’m the reason he was there.”
“Not this again,” she muttered as she released a long, heavy sigh. “How many times do we have to go through this? He was the reason he was there.”
“There’s something you don’t know about that op.” He didn’t know how much detail he should give. York had been specific in his orders. Yet, as Rand sat up in that apartment with Jeremy, Jason already knew it was too late. The churning in his stomach had grown into a sol
id mass of guilt. “I really am the reason he was there. A guy on TREX’s most wanted list put out the feelers for a dirty bomb. Jeremy picked up the chatter and contacted him. A few emails later, the guy wanted to meet. TREX didn’t want an untrained sideline agent in the field, so they told Jer the lead went cold and sent me in his place.”
“Without him knowing?”
“It was sanctioned by Special Director Ron Donovan himself. That’s how high up this went.”
“And we all know what a stellar leader that guy made,” she snorted. “He disappeared somewhere in South America and is probably living it up on some beach somewhere sipping daiquiris. He seems like a daiquiri kind of guy. Anything with Donovan’s name attached was FUBAR’d from the beginning.”
No shit. “Including the op that nearly took my twin. If Jer had known about the meet, he would have insisted on going and screwed the entire mission. As far as he knew, it was a dead op. Things were going great. I had the guy eating out of my hands. It wasn’t until he wanted a demo did we realize our mistake.”
“You’re not Jeremy.” She made the connection. “You couldn’t demo a bomb you knew nothing about and had never built. Why wouldn’t you just bring him back in?”
“The tango would have known. I can act like Jeremy and be all uptight, but he can’t loosen up enough to be like me. I thought the op was dead. Donavan told me the op was dead, damn it.” Jason cussed and rested his head against the building before the constriction in his chest moved to his throat.
“Uh huh. Let me see if I can read the writing not in the report. Donovan told you the op was dead, sent you back to the practice field, and reinstated Jeremy without your brother knowing the whole story. The minute Jeremy showed up, the tango knew something was off and, well, the rest is in the report.”
“Now you know why I haven’t told him everything.”
She gasped. “Wait. That’s how you knew where he was so fast. It wasn’t twintuition. It was where you originally agreed to demo the bomb. Jesus, Jason. Why wouldn’t you at least give him a heads up on that?”
It Takes Two Page 25
